I tried to never build up my children's expectations about school too much
That is some very good advise and I wish that I had know this when I first changed schools for my DS. I built my child's expectations about the new school a lot because I thought that it might take away the anxiety he had about leaving his old friends and entering a new school. This has proved to be wrong - he was nervous at first that he might not be able to keep up in this new and "fabulous" school with advanced academics - and then, in a few weeks, asked me why everything was so easy. Since then, I just tell him that we are choosing the "better" of all the options available to us and that he needs to stretch himself to his maximum limits after school and we will facilitate and help him in that (he does not break a sweat at school even when he has been accelerated 2 years in the core subjects and the teacher has run out of material for him).
"Competition Math", Math Circles, Music Theory classes, Chess school, robotics and learning 3 languages has kept my son's brains busy. I do not think that middle school will be superior in any way - but, I believe that a great High School can challenge HG+ kids sufficiently.
